An orchestrated upgrade of virtual machines allows you to upgrade VMware Tools and the virtual hardware for the virtual machines in your vSphere inventory at the same time. You can perform an orchestrated upgrade of virtual machines at the folder or datacenter level.

Update Manager makes the process of upgrading the virtual machines convenient by providing baseline groups. When you remediate a virtual machine against a baseline group containing the VMware Tools Upgrade to Match Host baseline and the VM Hardware Upgrade to Match Host baseline, Update Manager sequences the upgrade operations in the correct order. As a result, the guest operating system is in a consistent state at the end of the upgrade.

This workflow describes the overall process to perform an orchestrated upgrade of the virtual machines in your vSphere inventory.

You upgrade virtual appliances by using a virtual appliance upgrade baseline. You can either use the predefined virtual appliance upgrade baseline, or create custom virtual appliance upgrade baselines.